Maintenance and planning
We noticed no troops for pickup. For recruitment, any dhayut, sluken or mortalen troop are acceptable. Apart from that, the capital is the only one that can make armor and special forces. Or, Sipan 4 can make armored, but atuuks in the army? No way.
The booked are: 15 armored and 10 special forces on the capital. 6 normal troops on all colonies with dhayut/sluken/mortalen troops. 6 is the load of a transport. That leaves 5 or so colonies not recruiting, and the capital not recruiting normal troops, so about 9*6 = 54 troops. And 15 armor and 10 special forces. For pickup, when needed.
Also, about colonization, this is the left side colony list.
Lets colonize the lot.
Weirujum is in the capital system. 80%, a mining location of many a past pirate battle, and a prime spot for alien ships dropping out of some anomaly. A good prospect.
Dacshii 2 in the system of Ecery at the very north. 77%, no resources. Decent quality and prospect.
Xirus 3 a short stop west of the capital. A place on many pirate raids on mines. 71%, low-ish quality.
Narg 2 a short bit SE of Atuuko (and Beate). 80% decent, some resources.
Firassea 4 is new on the list. It has become our territory by the expansion of the Edop (and Grau) influence circles in the mortalen system. It is at the very edge of the circle, probably taken over from the mortalen capital circle with the improvements in Mortalu. Lets hope that it does not shift ownership as it orbits the star, or something.
Urukablis 1. At the very eastern edge of the Sipan circle. It is 59% and is rather crap, but in theory this OK mining system could be lost to the blue securans if either of their two colonies expand their influence circles by quite a lot. And we need something to urge pirates to crawl out of hiding in that area as well.
In an early expansion when colony ship feels empty and we are eager to expand, I would send a fleet ahead and stuff. Now we say "good luck", and consider buying some defense fleets for them once they are up. We do not bother to micro manage the race of the colonizer, it appears two will be mortalen and 1 securan.
Back to fighting
2175.03.17 and the struggle goes on. The aim is to make the empire a pirate free zone. And later, maybe to grab some more pirate colonies, but that could be quite a while.
Since we are preparing for new colonies and all, tidying our backyard would be a good idea. Again we see the pirate ships over the scanners in the capital area at the bottom. They appear to head for the targeted system in the upper left. The arrow is a single destroyer of the Atuuko defense fleet that will drive by and detect any pirate base if there. Then head back to its leader at Atuuko system.
If you are not stubborn about automation choices like I am, send a spy to steal the territory map of the pirate group in question.
Crusher 1 has refueled, and takes off towards the Najarca Council large spaceport nearby. We have seen them mess around in this area, and this is our local crew from the early days.
The destroyer found nothing. It heads off to three systems in the gas cloud just north. There are not that many options with hydrogen/caslon around. We also realize there is a caslon source (unused by us!) just outside our territory where those pirates are seen. That is maybe the answer. A destroyer of construction fleet heads there to find out. Construction fleet has been forgotten in the capital system with some frigates and destroyers.
2517.06.14 Crusher 1 finds a system with some ships, among them 1 fleet sitting a bit away from the spaceport. A construction ship appears to build a mining station. They attend to the spaceport and the ships around it. Those pink guys fought recently had about 3000 shields on their LSP, this one has 10620.
Lots of shields just means more grinding away. The spaceport at half shields. Once the station dies, they are told to jump at the construction ship, ignoring the other pirates for now.
They fail, the construction ship is too fast. We think these are dhayut pirates, and got our wonderful hyperdrives that way.
One cruiser is damaged with no hyperdrive and scrapped. As we watch it we notice it got a fighter bay. So that was what all the extra size was used for after getting larger build size? (this one is probably a new replacement cruiser, the old have not been retrofitted). Back to sloes van for repairs (one more is damaged), which also builds a replacement cruiser despite a warning about lacking osalia (the civilians should manage, right?).
No pirate bases around the NW area anywhere? What are they up to? Or possibly, where are they hiding?
2175.08.26 Crusher 6 is repaired at Ecery after their rought spaceport battle in the last part. The replacements are not yet finished at Sipan, but as we found no pirate base, they are told to move to Edop in the mortalu system. As a first step in finding action.
2175.10.02: Crusher 2 is refueled and ready, and launches towards the large spaceport of the sinister outlaws. Compared to the najarcan 10000 shields, the 4000 shields of this one looks like a breeze. They could hurt more, though.
Oh joy. We see the mortalen bust a pirate spaceport in their own capital system. A pirate group has taken over their minor colony in the system. It is our old buddies the lone dagger ravagers, who we have not seen moving since our attacks at their spaceports.
2176.01.03 Crusher 2 does not appear to struggle with their large, southern spaceport. They want to refuel at a gas mine at our nearest colony system, but we wonder. Wasn't there a pirate base just besides that one? They stop by there on the way just to check it out.
As we see Crusher 6 moving south, we notice that new pirate base south of Sipan. It appears like the system has quite a few bases of the B'cnus Network. Like we learned with the fire bandits, pirates that appear to cause no harm may attack at any moment. Better kill them while passing by.
Crusher 2 in the south finds no pirate base. Pirates killing pirates? They refuel at the gas mine in the colony system.
2176.03.07 6 or 7 small spaceports?! Crusher 6 has a surprise waiting for them. They did not expect all those bases to be at the same gas giant.
Crusher 6 took a beating, but we did manage to get them to finish off a damaged spaceport top right before leaving. 16 out of 31 ships make it back to Sipan for repairs. That is how you defend against empire fleets, good on those pirates!
After fumbling a bit we build 15 new ships for crusher 6 at the capital and sipan. We intended to use Ecery and Sipan, but... The east has no further targets for now, and Crusher 1 is told to refuel at sipan spaceport. It will be a delay until all of crusher 6 is ready, though.
You don't just defeat a crusher fleet and expect to be around to brag about it!
As new colonies appear, we recruit and garrison 5 troops. We make an exception and recruit 5 securan troops at Dacshii 2.
2176.06.15 A ship of the savage storm league shows up at Dila 3 and is killed by the defense fleet. We think they were in this region, and may have owned this colony. Their current known spaceports are more than 2 sectors east.
2176.07.16 Joy, we start to build an armored factory at Beate. At another colony that we will never build a troop at, but it is nice to the the maintenance bill.
2176.07.18 Crusher 2 is ready and refueled, and head for the large spaceport and colony of the sinister spaceways at the western edge. This colony was triggered by our explorer finding a sleeping chamber of securans a long time ago. The colony? Crap. 65%, max pop at 3788M. With a 14% development bonus ruin.
Invasion heads to the system SE of it, where there is nothing to be had in the form of resources, and where there should be nothing to fear at all.
A ship of the Alzuk Authority at Dila as well? Why do the old crews of this area suddenly show up after so long?
2176.09.15. A tax rebellion at the new colony Firassea 4? They are unhappy about being in dhayut empire, and complaining about no resources. One will be fixed with time, the other they have to get used to. And tax rebellion? From 30M Mortalen? We are ruined! And we should have sent a dhayut colonizer.
And as the dila fleet fight more Alzuk ships...
Crusher 2 engages the spaceport at the pirate colony, and a troop transport that is present. When they are dead, two transports of invasion fleet (in the system next doors) is sent in with a mix of armor and troops. The rest of invasion back to Edop in the Mortalu system.
Battle 7 has been sitting idly at Sipan the whole time. It is told to refuel and to head to the new colony in the west to relieve Crusher 2 which has 3 damaged. We could expect some pirate visitors at a former pirate colony, right?
The pirates had no defenders, and the second transport had to unload before we could start the pirate removal battle. Once the battle starts, invasion is ordered to load troops and the leader gets new order to move to mortalu system. We assume the new troops is a significant reason why our cashflow dropped (to a scary 179K).
The new colonists at Urukablis 1 are the same whiny mortalen as at that other colony. But these are unlikely to pay significant taxes ever. Since the whiny bastards are near the latest pirate activity at Dila 3, Ecery builds 4 destroyers, 2 cruisers and 2 carriers for a defense fleet of the system.
A construction ship tries to build in the pirate system that spanked Crusher 6. And nope, the 5 remaining spaceport has not dismantled themselves. Crusher 6 has all replacement ships built, they just need to get to sipan from the capital and refuel. Crusher 1 is ready at Sipan.
The rather poor colony of Shecetare 1 at the western edge. Near the end of the pirate battle.
2177.09.24. Crusher 1 and crusher 6 have launched at the 5 pirate spaceports. We can see a pirate ship in the dila system, doing no harm at all while the defense fleet is busy refueling at sipan.
The two crusher fleets go to work. On arrival, a securan strike force tried the same. We arrive with two crusher fleets unsure if we will succeed, they try with a strike force. They left, we do actual damage.
One spaceport is down, the fleets fight hard.
As the spaceports are down, and we finish off the last pirates (a size 806 cruiser among them!), we queue a gas mine at the site to keep eyes on things.
Crusher 1 and Crusher 6 had one damaged ship between them, a crusher 1 carrier with 1 damaged armor. If a hammer does not work, bring two. Crusher 6 heads back to refuel at Sipan to hang around in the north. Crusher 1 is told to repair at Sloes Van 6 spaceport to be ready in the east. Crusher 2 is in the west heading for the capital to repair after the arrival of Battle 7.
For now we declare that our hit list is clear. As long as pirates don't put bases too close or attack, we will sit tight for a while. If they attack? We will improvise something.
This intended inactivity does not include any pirate colonies nearby...
Two pirate colonies circled.
The top one is atuuk, and controlled by Tashtur Sinika Syndicate that are not included in the diplomacy list (a bug?). A 76% resource less continental. Polymer in the system is the slightly interesting resource.
The bottom one is owned by our old friends, the Najarca Counsil. The colony has good quality (88%) and 2300M mixed population with human as the most numerous.
For now, invasion is loading troops, and we tell the fleet leader to change course for Sipan which is between the two.
There is and has been a steady spam about attack on mines built in the Tefnyl Hive regions in the very south. We don't care.
2178.03.08. Another message about spice trade with the Secura Utopia? I thought we had that. And mining rights with the Haakonish.
As the leading invasion fleet ships are closing in on Sipan, Battle 3 moves from Ecery in the north, to the pirate system on Drumond Caas a modest distance to the west.
We realize some defense fleets are missing. We build 5 cruisers and 5 destroyers for some systems. It is nice that cruisers have 1 fighter bay, meaning that 5 of them give the same fighter cover as 1 carrier. Such fleets for
Daschii (including Ecery).
Shecetare (the one we just grabbed in the SW)
Muunos Mandil and Murillea (the two in the south)
Kurillea and Sloes Van (the two in the east)
Firassea (the new colony east of Mortalu)
For now we skip fleets for Xirus near the capital and Narg near Akkuto, since they are a bit "behind the lines". Attacks will make us change our mind if they appear. The new fleets give some freedom for battle fleets to move away from somewhat exposed targets.
This is not free, and we ignore warnings about various missing resources. We are surprised about a gold warning at the capital, for instance. We see that there is almost 2500 gold reserved at the gold mining base in the capital system, so it is probably already incoming.
2178.04.22 The talfagleu army attacks a mine in our new SW system. On to the new southern hit list with them. They have a spaceport nearby, we just need a crusher fleet.
Battle 8 is heading to the other marked pirate colony as Crusher 1 appeared at Sloes Van. They started from there, moving north.
2178.05.30: A deadly plague breaks out at Shecetare 1, the new SW former pirate colony. Such good things that one bring into the empire. It moves east to the mortalen colony a sector away...
Since we discovered the fighter bay on the cruiser design we want it. We try to retrofit Crusher 1 at Sloes Van, and that could take a while. Crusher 6 do the same at Sipan. Crusher 2 will do the same when done repairing at the capital. For sipan and the capital the new orders for defense fleets will delay things a bit.
2178.06.26 Invasion at Sipan send to transports to attack Drumond Caas 3, the pirate colony in the north. There may actually be no facility here, this colony is weird.
Battle 8 arrives in Framisc Yagin, the more southern pirate colony at the same time. They find 1 military ship, 3 construction ships, and a defensive base. They jump at the construction ship furthes from the defensive base. At the same time Invasion sends two troop transports. They are some distance away, remember.
As usual, the Najarcan Constructiors are too fast without hyper deny. The defensive base appears at half shields, is it brand new? It is an easy kill, since the cruisers focus on the jumping construction ship, we get a view of fighter power demolishing the base. None of our take more than shield damage.
-44K cashflow. At least the advisors wont ask for a large spaceport anytime soon. Bonus income is good, cash at 2,4M, no worries. We notice a massive spaceport income (558K, and that we suddenly have 190+148+85 freighters. I pondered at the low freighter count, at last status: 92+71+41.
The two pirate colonies are invaded about the same time. The same distance from Sipan indeed.
There are no facilities or forces at Drumond Caas 3. A buggy pirate group, it seems.
Drumond Caas 3 has some securans, and 61M Ikurro. The first Ikurro in the empire.
Eyost is populated with an angry bunch. 893M human, 584M Atuuk, 446M Sluken, 372M Mortalen, 257M Dhayut, 50M securan. A health mix of species. They used to live happily together, now all but the Dhayut and Sluken are forced into hard labor.
Since we are -74K cashflow and have civilians go berserk with shopping creating build queues, we buy two 5 destroyer, 5 cruiser fleets for the two conquests. 55 waiting at each spaceport! Up to 213 small freighters now, it was 190 a few lines up.
We watch the warnings about shortages with some interest.
We said we would retrofit Crusher 2, but with the current build queues, we won't. We are witing for the repair of the damaged cruiser to finish. Or not, it had damaged hyperdrive, and is a sector away, that is why it never was repaired
We order a replacement cruiser, to be delivered sometime in the far future when spaceport queues are gone. And scrap the stranded ship, of course.
2179.02.11 This leaves Crusher 2 ready for work. The Talfagleu Army entered our hit list by attacking a mine in Shecetare. We notice it is a dual small spaceport setup, no surprise this time!
2179.03.29 The sinister outlaws enter the list as one ship arrives at Murillea. Their only known base is too far for now, though.
2179.06.02 Many ships and two small spaceport for Crusher 2. Maybe we won't have to retrofit 30 ships after all?
They will lose 2 ships, including one carrier that is captured.
2179.07.09 Dread Dagger Pirates raid the new colony at Narg. Diplomacy have them at 3 ships. They must be newly spawned and we regret not checking that pirates do not respawn. We start building a defensive base on top of each of the 5 new colonies. And on the 3 former pirate ones.
Of the new colonies founded, all but the one at the top has good immigration of Dhayut and Sluken, the northern is stuck at 30M.
Ships are completed, the build queues are moving nicely, but clearing 60 ship buildqueues takes a bit of time.
Crusher 2 will try to take revenge on the annoying Sinister Outlaws. This can not be their only spaceport, but we can only hit what we see. The fleet is at the top circle, Edop. They will refuel at the southern colony, before heading for the pirate base at the very bottom. It is a small spaceport. We have refueling rights with the Tefnyl Hive, which are purple, in case we struggle with the return trip. Lets just hope the Tefnyls actually have some fuel in that case. They will wait a bit at our southern colony for their replacements that will be a bit behind.
2180.05.14 Fitting for a long trip, we research improvements to our racial hyperdrive. Speed up from 23.5k to 29k. The increased fuel consumption could be less beneficial for this trip.
2180.10.10: Crusher 2 starts on its long trip south to kill a pirate spaceport of the sinister outlaws.
2181.01.10 Dread mining attack our gas mine in Murillea and enter the hit list. Too bad we have no clue where they live. These were the guys around Sloes Van that hurt so much.
Unless otherwise mentioned, attacks are by single ships or a very small fleet.
2181.03.28: Crusher 2 finds a small spaceprot that is busy with 11 waiting for construction, and 16 waiting for docking. And that has some ships flying around. Some tefnyl hive ships are also in the system. Our ships kill a lot, and take no damage but shield damage. Enough range to refuel at home? They could refuel at the capital if wanted to (but not at Sipan). They head for the southern colony, hoping for more revenge targets to appear (Dread mining? where are you?).
Economy? -136k cashflow improving, but money is not going down unless we do some major shopping. No need to panic unless money starts tropping fast.
2181.06.30 As Crusher 2 flies north after their spaceport bust, we realize they will fly right past A Talfagleu Army spaceport (small). They did enter our annoyance list showing up at that SW colony, so why not? This could make them short on fuel, due to the fighting possibly using a lot of energy...
2181.08.17 At arrival they find the spaceport damaged, and the sinister spaceways present.
We said "don't hunt pirates", but when the Fearsome Sun Clan of no annoyance is right here?
They aim for the construction ship working outside, and seems to blow up the spaceport (lower left) as an aftertought at landing. Was it shields down already? Almost dead? Now it is dead. A Talf mine on the rock to the right disappeared right away too.
They took damage on one cruiser at the first spaceport, and heads to edop for repairs. The range was maybe reduced by half a sector, but it was two short fights downing 2 spaceports.
2181.11.01 We notice that the colony north of Sloes Van, where we knew a hidden network was being built ages ago, has turned pirate. And not just any pirates, the Dread Mining. Invasion heads for Sloes Van.
Crusher 2 will retrofit at Edop space port, after having its damaged cruiser repaired.
2182.02.16: As Invasion is closing in (on Sloes Van), Crusher 1 is told to attack the pirate colony Pismimbin 1 just to the north. Attack in case there are some structures in place, but if there were we may have seen them on the long range scanner at Sloes Van 6 spaceport.
In other news? From the image we can see that the tiny, undeserving Sloes Van 6 is at least powerful enough to have it influence circle around the Securan Harmony colony down left. If we assume no slaves arrived, we have added about 1300M dhayut and 1600M Sluken since we conquered it. Current population 4154M.
As Crusher 1 as assumed find no opposition, two transports are ordered to attack.
Right after the conquest, a defensive base is ordered, and the pirate structured attacked. Poor quality, nice resources. Minor population of Dhayut and Sluken gives hope of migrants arriving, good since enslaved species does not appear to reproduce well. The system also adds a couple of fuel sources, in an area that has lots of them already. More fuel never hurts.
Invasion fleet is told to load troops, and the leader heads north to Sipan.
It is 2182.11.16, and three pirate colonies have been added.
Status
I have been a bit distracted by helping a friend getting started in the game. And motivation here took a hit, but I guess I must try get into a nice little war.
It has been a couple of days since I played, so my "annoyed" list is a bit rusty, but pirate activity has been some weirdness at Dila (not attacks, just pirates arriving maybe looking for a base destroyed 11 years ago at least), and attacks at the new SW colony, and the small southern colony of relatively newness. The "eastern area" has not been bothered, but we just took a new colony that could trigger some.
We lost our loros fruit supply. The Haakonish wants our stuff, and has both loros and zentiba fluid. The Secura Utopia has been turning spice supplies on and off at frequent intervals. Since they can't decide, maybe we should fetch some? An idea for the future. Which may be why we did the random act of sending invasion leader to Sipan.
There are no futher pirate colonies within 2 sectors of our area.
The galaxy map, with pirates, as usual.
New pirate colony added to the empire in the SW. Another of those is the northern of the 3 we got nearest the galaxy center. And a new pirate one sitting "alone" among foreign territories north of that. And a new left of the big one at the top.
New normal colonies. In the capital system. In the top, big, system. Just west of capital. East of the hub SE of capital (east of Mortalu). Just SE of the "big" colony in the NW. And the easternmost colony near Sipan (the big circle in the middle-north).
Pirates? No annoying targets are known, there is probably something unknown in the south. One corner of the galaxy looks more tidy than the other, and the tidy corner has a red presence.
The Haakonish has -30 covetion, -4 envy and -7 angry at enslavement. And they have two ultra rares. It is hard to overcome those two negatives.
Tefnyl Hive could be an ally that may drag us into wars. It is +33 with just a -4 envy on the negative side. They mostly love our heroic repuation (+21). Feeding them an ultra rare could possibly help both their mood in general, and the trade values to increase that bonus from +4.
I suck at photo editing, so no merging of two shots to get them all. I include the "low" ones (by revenue) to give some comments about the new colonies.
The capital is now at max pop. We have no major signs of lacking ultra rares (135 development is the norm).
It is clear that people migrate to enslavement, as there are 126M naxxilians at Firassea 4. Enslaved races does not grow at all. The ones we established are:
Weirujum in the capital system. 472M Sluken, 426M Dhayut. Sluken are migrating to our colonies in good numbers. 900M is not a bad number after 5-6 years.
Firassea 4 had mortalen colonizers, and only 30M mortalen are there still. 623M sluken, 216M Naxx, 110M dhayut have migrated, or been a result of the reproduction of migrants.
Xirus 3 west of the capital. 572M sluken, 388M Dhayut. Again, a large sluken migration.
Urukablis 1 east of Sipan had mortalen colonizer. 454M dhayut are the additions.
Narg 2 SE of Beate had dhayut colonizer and has 657M dhayut. Hello sluken? We got room. They are probably dissatisfied with the distance to the colony and the desert conditions.
Dachshii 2 in the very north (at Ecery) see no migration and is stuck at 30M securan.
Pismimbind 1, the latest grab, is tiny and has room for more, but will never be very profitable or large at 65%. Drumond Caas 3 could have migration issues, and won't reproduce as all are enslaved. Eyost will be nice. 609M sluken and 442M dhayut do reproduce, the 878M humans do great as forced labor.
All the ones with growth potential should do well from migration. Unless amongst the silly species of the very north.
211 cruisers are a few, them having a fighter bay is lovely. The civilians had less than half as many freighters at the last update.
After recruiting a bunch of troops and building quite a few defensive fleets for various systems, we have found our cashflow limit. But if resort income stay at 133K we have absolutely no issues at all. 2.4M is a decent buffer in any case.
The issue with negative cashflow is that the AI does not seem to build fortified bunkers.
Should have sent two fleet to blockade them both. They will grab the minor colony, lets make them unhappy by being near a superior one!
